Use of horses

[pflaming]

Organic farmers are beginning to use horses more in their farming practices. I can recall memories of horse drawn wagons and hand corn picking, and horse drawn hay mowers and raking. Large rancher used strong teams to pull hay wagons while the ranch pitched off hay to feed cattle until just recently.  Question, what do you recal? 

Edited July 5, 2018 by pflaming

[Plymouthy Adams]

my grandfather never had a tractor on the place his entire life.  He farmed with a team of horse and used the McCormick mower and big tine hay rakes.  Plows, harrows and disk along with sleds, the fields were tended and the crops harvested.  Hay was brought from the field atop the mountain by sled as coming down a hill with a wagon is rough on horses where the sled is less likely to run up their butts.  Hay was handed from pitch fork to pitch fork from the sled to next man and from a position on a ladder to the man in the loft door to the man behind him filling the rear of the loft first.  My grandfather would stop the team going up to the hay field and remove his hat and fill it with water from the spring to water the horse.  Simple times, hard but rewarding work but the farm was self sufficient.  Makes for some great memories of a time long past.  

Edited July 5, 2018 by Plymouthy Adams

[Dan Hiebert]

Every summer when I was a kid we'd visit our grandparents in Jones Ridge, IL (pop. @ 12 when we were there, Post Office is/was Rockwood) in the Mississippi river valley.  Lots of wheat, corn, and later soybean farming, but all by machine.  Mostly John Deere.  I do have fond memories of chilling on the porch, just listening to the putting-purr of a "Johnny Popper" working a nearby field.  I also recall that it got so still there, you could sit in a corn field and hear the rustle of the corn growing.  My first ever job was there, de-tasseling said corn.

[Mike36]

If you live near the Amish, you don’t have to recall these things as they are still doing them. Go watch.

[Dan Hiebert]

Yep, many Amish communities in these parts.  Most of them are oblivious to having folks watch them work their fields with their draft horses.  Not that it's a big spectator sport, but an occasional stop to watch how they work can be refreshing when you're thinking you've got it rough...

[Dave72dt]

I was 5 when we moved onto our grandparents farm. I recall a team of horses at the time, one we used to pull the hay forks loaded with baled hay into the rafters in the center of the barn where it would then roll down a rail to either side of the barn depending on which side we were filling at the time, then pull the trip rope to dump them.  I don't recall ever seeing them used as a team though and we keep them very long.  I remember the neighborhood threshing times and I think teams were used to on some of the wagons when they picked up the shocked bundles in the field.

 

My delivery routes at work take me through an Amish/Mennonite area so I get to see them in the field on a regular basis.  The ones I'm familiar with are not adverse to hiring custom work done.  One of the most curious scenes happened this spring where I saw a farmer with his team pulling a small, 6-8 ft field cultivator prepping the soil for planting alongside a modern dualled up four wheel drive tractor pulling forty of fifty feet of cultivator.

[desoto1939]

I live near Lancaster PA and get to see first hand the Amish and their work ethic.  They will always have the last laugh on the general public.  The Amish can support themselves and do not need all of the modern equipment and do-dad to live very simplistic.  When in colege in Dover delaware we had a few Amish that would come into town to shop and they would go through our campus. i got to know some of them. At first they were standoffish but as we saw each other on a routine basis they becsme for friendly.  The Amish are a very unique and after you get to know them they are the greatest people and will always put out their hand to help you.  Our general society should take a big lesson from their ways and manners and we would all be in a better place.

 

Rich Hartung